'Roger Ailes would be appalled': Kayleigh McEnany's 'Trump TV' debut gets ruthlessly fact-checked

The Independent Journal Review's Gary Legum blasted former CNN commentator Kayleigh McEnany's Sunday debut on President Donald Trump's "Real News" channel, echoing other commentators who called the broadcast "propaganda" and compared it to North Korean state-run TV.

On Sunday, Legum wrote, "we awoke to McEnany's new gig: reading propaganda for Trump TV, the president's own channel dedicated to giving you 'the real news,' as McEnany says at the end of the video."

"And by 'channel,' we mean videos posted on Facebook containing the production quality of a project from a junior high AV club taught by an out-of-work snuff-film director in the mid-1990s," he quipped.

During the broadcast, McEnany touted Trump's handling of the economy, his signing of a new immigration bill and the passage of a reform package for the Veterans' Administration.

"And, as CNBC's John Harwood noted in reaction to this '1 million jobs' line from the Trump Team, average monthly job growth in the nine months immediately preceding Trump's election was higher," Legum wrote, a figure that has been backed up by multiple economists.

McEnany said, "On Wednesday the president introduced the RAISE Act. For decades, a steady rise in immigration has depressed the wages of American workers. The RAISE Act will increase wages, decrease poverty, and save the taxpayers billions. Americans deserve a raise, and President Trump is finally putting the American worker first.”

Legum responded, "According to many economists and studies, that second sentence is simply not true, no matter how many adorable children Republicans use to sell the RAISE Act to the public. Even the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute has called b.s. on studies that make the claim McEnany does."

"And that is it. McEnany needs 89 seconds — including introduction and ending title card — to list the president's accomplishments for the week. What were those accomplishments? Pinning a Medal of Honor on a Vietnam veteran, taking credit for jobs growth he had nothing to do with, and signing one bill and promoting another that he had had zero hand in writing," Legum said.

So far, he said, Trump TV has been attractive blonde women "underscored by generic and vaguely patriotic music, giving Trump credit for doing the bare minimum of his duties as president."

He concluded, "Trump's old friend Roger Ailes would be appalled at this level of amateurishness."